Ukraine risks losing IMF support over stalled anti-corruption laws
Ukraine’s chances to receive a new tranche of the International Monetary Fund is under risk due to slow progress in implementing anti-corruption measures, experts warn.
One of the key stumbling stones at the moment is a law that would allow to create an independent corruption investigation body. Two competing drafts of it are scheduled to be discussed at the Aug. 20 Cabinet meeting.
The IMF board is due to take a decision on whether to disperse the next $1.4 billion to Ukraine on Aug. 29. This would be the second tranche of a $17 billion, two-year stand-by package that was approved by the Fund in April. The country’s finance minister Oleksandr Shlapak said this money would be used to boost the ailing national currency, which has entered its second stage of sharp devaluation in just over half a year.
One of the preconditions for receiving new cash, however, is the creation of an “independent anti-corruption agency with broad investigative powers” and “adoption of legislation to support anti-corruption effort,” according to the July 18 statement by Nikolay Gueorguiev, IMF mission chief for Ukraine. There has been little progress on these issues, however.
Andrei Marusov, chairman of Transparency International in Ukraine, said that previously political parties of both the ousted President Viktor Yanukovych and his arch-rival Yulia Tymoshenko were resistant in parliament to forming a new anti-corruption body.
http://www.kyivpost.com/content/politics/ukraine-risks-losing-imf-support-over-stalled-anti-corruption-laws-361251.html